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The Return

Synopsis

A story of two Russian boys whose father suddenly returns home after a 12-year absence. He takes the boys on a holiday to a remote island on a lake that turns into a test of manhood of almost mythic proportions.

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return is an enigmatic coming-of-age drama about two brothers and the return of their estranged father. Absent for 12-years, the father is little more than a stranger but the brothers have very different reactions to his unexpected reappearance. Whereas the eldest welcomes his new role model, wanting to please and be just like him, the youngest brother is mistrusting and resentful both of his absence and his questionable style of parenting.

Shot in cool blues and greys, the film is oppressive yet beautiful. The stillness of the camera allows you to take in every detail whilst the deliberate pacing heightens the film’s palpable tension and sense of impending doom. The relationship between the trio…

This was probably one of my most anticipated watches. In a very short span of time, director Andrey Zvyagintsev has gone from being unknown to me, to becoming one of my favourite directors; an auteur rubbing shoulders with the likes of Kubrick and Malick. This is pretty amazing considering I’ve only seen two of his films. I’m happy to say that The Return, a favourite of many of my LB friends, only further cements that position.

What I appreciate about Zvyagintsev the most is his deft skill at subtly weaving context into his very straight forward, and narratively economical, stories. Rarely is the symbolism worn on its sleeve, but rather quietly hinted it; so quietly in some cases that you’re…

Why I watched this one? I get a lot of movies from my local libraries...I have no memory of why I picked out this one....I must be getting old.

What is this one about? From IMDb....In the Russian wilderness, two brothers face a range of new, conflicting emotions when their father - a man they know only through a single photograph - resurfaces.

My thoughts on this one? Wow I am in the minority here as I see The Return has an IMDb rating of 8.0...which is pretty high on that site....and way higher than I would rate it. Maybe I am too slow to pick up on the hidden meanings in this one. To me this was a slow…

The Return has been quoted by many as a haunting film and more intelligently deemed Kafkaesque by Roger Ebert but no where have I seen any stab at interpreting this mammoth beast. It's quite possible that director Andrey Zvyagintsev had no intended hidden meaning behind the mystery presented and it was the experience of the film that matters. I can certainly agree with that but the entire time watching I strongly felt that this ominous and prodigal father figure had to represent something larger than himself as his two sons equally embody the victims of this oppressive force. Perhaps if I had a more of a back knowledge in Russian history or even on the director's thoughts and ideas of…

A 'return' as such for this viewer to a modern Russian classic that needed a fresh perspective in light of my recent Tarkovsky explorations (the film is often referred as a gentle nod to the revered auteur), to see if I could get a better handle on it's possible allegorical and symbolic make-up. While the film can be read as a simple tale of 'the return' of a long absent and mysterious father figure who activates a psychological change in his two sons at a critical age in their development, Andrei Zviagintsev himself (in interviews) has alluded to a richer journey if Russian folklore and Christian mythology are…

Vladimir Garin the boy who plays Andrey in this film died several months after filming this on the exact same lake it was filmed. As if the film isn't already chilling and haunting but that just adds another level to it's eerie mysticism.

i think i really must have missed something because i HATE this movie and i HATED the dad and i literally could not have cared less about him and i just wanted to take his kids away and it really felt like they were trying to say something meaningful about father-son relationships and, like, fuck that. stop making father-son movies that hinge on the father being emotionally distant and physically abusive.